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Something most land-bound souls don’t know or understand is the truth that a
worthy sailing craft has a soul. Born among the timber and sweat of the
craftsmen, bound to the heart of the captain and crew, the ship serves out her
life to further the end for which she was created.
But as so often happens
through the annals of maritime history, one unfortunate craft was captured,
brought down, laid low to the whims of its captors. Twisted and bent by the
evil intentions and shadowy purposes of a dark-hearted captain. What was once
La Concorde has been reborn in Hades’ fires to become the Queen Anne’s Revenge.
Held aloft and driven forth by a spirit that both fights against and for the
evil one that is her captain, should she ever break free of her hell-forged
shackles, pity the black soul of the madman known as Blackbeard.
It’s been ages since I built or reviewed a Lego Pirate model. Aside from a
review
I did last year of a clone brand (which in itself was pretty satisfying) the
last model I put together was probably one of the Armada ships back in 1997 (can
ya say ‘holy moley!’?). I’m a long-time fan of Pirate stuff and dang if they
aren’t great playing models but if you get too many of them there’s just no
place to display them (unless you have oodles of shelf space).
I’ve been very much looking forward to this new Pirate ship! Where I usually
wait a bit to pick up and review the newer models, there was just no waiting for
this baby. For the most part I’m not overly crazy about model/theme crossovers
with movies. I think the themes ought to be able to stand on their own merits,
but the new models look very promising toward reviving the line with some new
designs and some much needed additional structures (castle/buildings, alternate
locations like islands and such, and coaches).
The first thing to catch my attention on opening the box was the presence of a
poster (one side is a picture of the model, the other side is an odd collage of
cartoon depictions of the various characters for this theme). I was also
surprised to see a small playing card with the picture of the Blackbeard
character on it (maybe a different card comes with each set?), no stats or
details, just the picture of ‘beardy’.
The finished three mast model measures about 25 inches long by 19 inches high.
The craft mainly consists of a lower deck with six firing hatches on each side
of the ship (though there are only eight berths for cannon placement). Three
cannons are supplied to arm the ship (and this is the first time I’ve seen the
cannon elements in a chrome gun grey color..cool!) There’s a small upper deck
at the front of the ship, a rear second-level deck for the (somewhat enclosed)
captain’s quarters and there’s a third-level poopdeck for the ship’s navigation
wheel.
Throughout the ship’s design, there’s a distinct skeleton motif that is done
fairly well with a skeleton figure head, various torso/skulls/bones adorning the
sides ending with a large black lantern hanging off the end made up of, again,
more skeletal torsos. The nice touch of dark scarlet-hued sails bearing crossed
swords and a crown (instead of a giant skull and crossbones) is very welcome.
Pardon the pun, but there are boatloads of new parts (at least new to me)
including: somewhat different bow and stern sections, minifig size bottles, a
large cutlass, sand-tone tricorn hat, new hat/with hair elements (minor
complaint- the hats can’t be separated from the hair), a big beard element, pail
and handle, fiery skeleton torso, flaired ladder sections and bone elements (2
and 5 studs long). There’s also the cool use of the new ‘trophy’ element that
is painted like an idol/statue of some sort. Decals/stickers are included for
the firing hatches and windows.
Specific figures include Jack Sparrow, Angelica, Blackbeard (comes with the
aforementioned big beard element but also has a good face/beard paint so you can
go without using the atrociously large beard element if you so desire),
quartermaster, chef, two ‘zombie’ pirates, plus two complete skeletons that are
part of the ship’s design.
There’s a LOT of satisfaction with the build of this boat. Throughout the build
there was a definite feeling that the designers specifically went out of their
way to come up with new ideas. In essence, there’s a feel of evolutionary
design rather than just copying what has been done before: The hull sections
use technic pieces instead of bricks to connect to each other, the sail booms
are made up of technic elements instead of the standard plate constructions
we’ve seen in the past and there is a lot of detail that goes into building up
the sides and cabin walls (lots of smaller parts make up the more than 1000
piece count for the additional detail).
If there’s any complaint at all, it might be that I would have liked some more
deck levels but I really can’t complain about the final product, it was worth
the money and makes for a beautiful display or play model.
!!! 4x2ReVu Stats !!!
Rating: Eight out of eight studs.
Pros: Terrific, new design for a ship that isn’t necessarily just for
pirates/bad guys (if you can overlook the overabundance of skeletal remains that
adorn the whole thing). Great details in the design and it comes with a
poster!
Walletwise: 1094 pieces for around $120.
Date: 5/2/11
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